Political Books

New Obama Book Coming Next Month

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:05:59 -0500

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has a new book coming out this fall which means "the senator's picture and policies will be in the front of most bookstores in America throughout the heart of the general-election campaign," according to Politico.

Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise "includes a campaign photo album from the road, a collection of seven of the hit speeches" by Obama "and new essays outlining his policy proposals."

"The secret project -- both a collectible, and an answer to questions about his substance -- was launched just a month ago, and got to the printer with no leaks."

Writer Recounts Beat Poet Ginsberg's Treks Across India

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Anyone who's completely unaware of the impact that Beat poet Allen Ginsberg left on American life in the second half of the 20th century must have spent his life on Mars. But what a lot of us are less aware of is his international peregrinations, especially to India and its environs.

Deborah Baker, a writer who has lived in Calcutta since 1990, describes in A Blue Hand -- The Beats in India how in 1961, Ginsberg embarked with his lover Peter Orlovsky on "a restless, comic, and tortured quest for meaning in the ashrams in the Himalayan foothills, the opium dens of Delhi, and the burning pyres of Benares."

In Calcutta, Ginsberg joined a circle of aspiring young writers, which led to a cultural exchange of ideas between East and West. Baker's work traces "how India's landscape of spectacular beauty and spiritual promise, devastating poverty and political unease profoundly altered American literature in the latter half of the twentieth century."

Vincent Bugliosi Pulls No Punches In "Indicting" George Bush For Murder

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Even for this lawyer, it's as hard to read Vincent Bugliosi as his fellow lawyer/author Alan Dershowitz. So tendentious is their approach to reasoned discourse that you feel that seated across from them at lunch, you'd be lifted half out of your seat by your tie before coffee arrived.

Bugliosi, who's been commanding public attention since his involvement in the Charles Manson trial led to his best-selling book, Helter Skelter, knows that even many diehard George Bush critics will dismiss, out of hand, the idea that the President ought to be tried for murder because of his role in the Iraqi war. So, in The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, he sets the table by carefully conditioning his readers to disabuse themselves of the notion that no matter how misdirected George Bush was in the 2003 runup to war and even if he lied about the WMDs, that it's unthinkable that an American president could, like Saddam Hussein, face conviction for killing thousands. It's just not the American way.

The manner in which wealth and power have anesthetized Americans to government corruption all around them leads Bugliosi to conclude that "I do not believe that America is a great nation anymore." He bases his opinion on other nations' opinion of us, on Kenneth Starr's ability run roughshod in trying to destroy an American president over his private sexual dalliances, on public unpopularity towards helping the poor, and on our government's failure to provide universal health care.

His conclusion is sobering and persuasive until he concludes that another major reason for America's decline is that while European nations have "virtually discarded organized religion," America "is the only nation in the Western world....that is becoming more religious." He then goes on basically to equate organized religion with born-again fundamentalism. I'm sure the scores of millions of mainstream, practicing American Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims would recoil from that conclusion.

Writer Describes How Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs Built Cult Of Fear

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Texas law enforcers' raid in April on the ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and led by Warren Jeffs transfixed the nation, as young women, dressed in 19th century clothing and hairstyles to match, begged for return of the 419 children removed from the ranch and placed in protective custody.

In When Men Become Gods -- Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, And The Women Who Fought Back, writer Stephen Singular recounts how the sect came into being, how Warren Jeffs came to head it, and how investigators built a case for his arrest in 2007. The following brief excerpt gives a flavor of the tale:

"On January 30, 1998, Warren Jeffs spoke to a class of seventh and eighth grade females: 'A girl's emotions and feelings can be led by the wrong things if she's not careful. After all, who knows the spirit of revelation better -- you or the prophet?'

"Sometimes Jeffs demonstrated his teachings about female obedience and male leadership with cruelty. His first wife, Annette, had become Alta (Academy)'s home economics instructor, and one morning in front of boys and girls gathered in the meeting hall, Warren and his spouse were addressing the audience. he grabbed Annette's long braided hair, twisting it slowly around his hand, tightening his grip until she dropped to the floor, her face turning crimson and contorting in pain. She didn't make a sound or movement of protest. He let go and quietly left the room with no explanation to the students and no apology to his wife, who stood up, straightened her hair, and went back to teaching. She'd grasped well the concept of 'keeping sweet.'"

Professor Profiles Author Of 1,600-Page Syrian Islamist Insurgency Bible

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

In the 1980s, Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, a Syrian originally known as Mustafa Sethmarian Nasar, published a 1,600-page book entitled, The Global Islamic Resistance Call, which supplied the younger generation with a blueprint to follow to build an Islamist insurgency and guerrilla warfare movement.

While al-Suri was reportedly captured in Pakistan in late 2005, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment Prof. Brynjar Lia argues in Architect of Global Jihad that he "remains a potent political and ideological figure." His new book is a biography of the charismatic leader and the world that gave rise to him.

Professor: Heads Up! The Earth Is In A Death Spiral

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

The earth, according to retired University of Washington Prof. William H. Calvin in Global Fever -- How to Treat Climate Change, has begun what is nothing less than a death spiral. The time has long passed for considering how much sacrifice we're willing to make -- not if we want to save the planet we inhabit.

"Every decade since 1950 has seen more floods and more wildfires on every continent," Calvin observes. "Deserts are expanding, coral reefs are dying, fisheries are declining, hurricanes are strengthening. The debate about climate change is over: there's no question that global warming has made the Earth sick, and the outlook for the future calls for ever-warmer temperatures and deadlier results."

Given the stridency of his warning, it's not surprising that this environmental Cassandra calls for nothing less than a "third industrial revolution" to save the planet. This one, Calvin writes, would be "one of clean technologies -- while simultaneously expanding our use of existing low-emission technologies, from nuclear power to plug-in hybrid vehicles, until we achieve the necessary scientific breakthroughs."

Authors Use Social Science To Read Jurors's Minds

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:17:46 -0500

Using social science techniques to get inside the heads of prospective jurors is employed in many, if not most, civil jury trials today, producing a bonanza for consultants in the field. As a science, it dates back three decades to the Harrisburg Seven trial of anti-Vietnam War protestors.

As Joel D. Lieberman and Bruce D. Sales argue in Scientific Jury Selection, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought funds from Congress to control antiwar protestors, including Catholic priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan. Upon their indictment, the government deliberately moved their trial to the conservative bastion of Harrisburg, PA. In reaction, sociologist Jay Schulman and other antiwar supporters formed a coalition to help the defense create a more impartial jury.

The trial strategy the defense employed was risky by any standards -- they proclaimed the defendants' innocence at the outset and called no witnesses. Seven days of jury deliberation ended in a hung jury, and the defendants were never retried. The rest, as they say, is history.

Joel D. Lieberman, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada; and Bruce D. Sales, professor of psychiology, sociology, psychiatry and law at the University of Arizona, trace the history of jury selection, the purpose of voir dire, and the influence of demographics, personality, and attitudes on jury selection. They examine how prospective jurors are questioned and observed for nonverbal behavior, and suggest how scientific jury selection is likely to evolve in the future.

Learning American History One State Quarter At A Time

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

How many grandparents among us have given official state quarters to our grandkids to teach them about history, government and geography? On the occasion of the release of the final state quarter this year, attorney Jim Noles takes readers on a tour of the people, places, monuments and symbols that appear on the quarters in A Pocketful of History -- Four Hundred Years of America -- One State Quarter At A Time. In a brief interview, Noles talked about his interest in the quarters and the writing of his book:

Q. Visually speaking, which quarter do you like best?

A. I think there are several good ones. I like the artistic simplicity of Connecticut's, with the Charter Oak; of Montana's, with a buffalo skull; and of Texas', with the Lone Star. I think Rhode Island's is well done also. It depicts the schooner Reliance sailing in front of the Claiborne Pell Bridge.

Q. Your book is divided into fifty chapters, and each tells the story behind the image of a particular state's quarter. Do you have a favorite?

A. I enjoyed the chapters in which I was able to tell something new or unusual about a state's history. For example, Colorado's quarter depicts a mountain range, which is a fairly common image of Colorado in people's minds. But very few people realize that the CIA trained Tibetan freedom fighters in Colorado's mountains outside of Leadville in the 1950s. Another example -- Alabama's quarter depicts Helen Keller. Practically everyone in the world knows of Helen Keller. But far fewer realize that, because of her radical political beliefs, she was subjected to monitoring by the FBI.

Authors Chronicle Gilded Age Exposure Journalism And Its Effect On Social Change

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:01:41 -0500

Contrast is the oxygen of journalism. So in the Gilded Age, as the J.P. Morgans' lavish carriages made their way up Fifth Avenue to palaces of splendor, the fact that the majority of New Yorkers lived in squalor was grist for the mill and eagerly devoured by readers.

Among exemplars of the chronicling of lives of the poor were novelist Stephen Crane, who wrote Maggie, a Girl of the Streets in 1893 and Lincoln Steffens, whose The Shame of the Cities in 1904 lifted the lid off the roiling pot of municipal corruption. But Bonnie Yochelson and her fellow authors argue in Rediscovering Jacob Riis -- Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York, these muckrakers lacked the sense of moral uplift brought by their colleague, Jacob Riis, whose 1890 work, How the Other Half Lives, used photographs to detail the breakdown of the family, small children imprisoned in sweatshops, and homelessness on a grand scale.

In his day and beyond, Riis proved a controversial figure for faith in private and religious charity to remedy these ills and for the possibility of creating affordable housing for the masses, whom immigration had dumped into the urban milieu in numbers far to large for cities to assimilate.

Bonnie Yochelson, former curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, and Daniel Czitrom, professor of history at Mount Holyoke, offer scores of Riis's photographs and revisit many of the questions that poverty reformers from Jacob Riis to John Edwards wrestle with:

"What is the structural relationship between persistent poverty and new immigrants? If different "races" and nationalities possess inherent moral and cultural characteristics, how can that be reconciled with the American creed of individualism? How does environment shape "character"? What are the proper roles of government, private philanthropy, and religion in reform efforts? How important is spectacle and entertainment in rousing the public conscience?"

Greenhouse Finds Labor Fallen On Hard Times But He Prescribes Solutions

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Workers have fared better or worse in one chapter or another of their participation in American capitalism. Yet in spite of all the gains recorded by the labor movement during the 20th century, the early years of the 21st aren't likely to go down in history as among its salad days.

In The Big Squeeze -- Tough Times for the American Worker, veteran New York Times labor writer Steven Greenhouse catalogs the challenges facing America's workforce: "the offshoring of white-collar jobs, the Wal-Mart effect, the steeper climb for young workers, the decline of organized labor, the exodus of factories to Mexico and China, the growing power imbalance between management and worker." Greenhouse relies not simply on anecdotal evidence but weaves in historical, economic and sociological analysis before forming his conclusions.

Helpfully, Greenhouse's tract is not only analytical but prescriptive, as he calls for solutions -- some insightful, others unrealistic. He would increase the minimum wage, legislate against management sleights-of-hand which effectively steal a portion of workers' wages, create statutory safeguards to insure job security and health benefits for the ill and elderly, and creating retirement security accounts to supplement Social Security. Other proposals, such as strengthening organized labor and treating workers with respect, depend on political will and grassroots effort, which seem lacking in today's environment.

Journalist Chonicles What He Sees As The Balkanization Of Americans

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Much has been written of the widening gap between the power elite and the working class in America over the past three decades. But, as journalist Bill Bishop writes in The Big Sort, an even more insidious trend has been taking place during that period which is just as divisive. He calls the phenomenon The Big Sort.

Some of its characteristics include the clustering of college degree-holders in particular cities, reversing a trend towards an even spread across American cities; the growth of homogeneous mega-churches in new suburbs, built for "people like us"; and the targeting by marketers towards like-minded "image tribes." In a brief interview, Bishop speaks of the writing of his new book:

Q. Isn't the whole lesson of the 2008 election that the country is sick of this "red" and "blue" way of thinking?

A. No question. People -- especially Americans -- hate disagreement. That's why they put themselves in churches, neighborhoods, and clubs where they easily find agreement. It's interesting, however, that when pollsters ask about compromise, most Democrats and Republicans believe their side has given enough -- that it's time for the other side to see the error of their ways. We all seem to think it's the other side that's causing the problems. So, yes, there's a lot to talk about the end of partisanship. We just don't see anybody changing neighborhoods."

Q. Are you saying 2008 will be a repeat of 2000 and 2004?

A. There's no telling, of course. But already you can see The Big Sort at work in the primaries. The maps of Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Missouri in the Democratic primary are all deeply marked by geographic segmentation. Senator Barack Obama won the traditional Democratic strongholds in the cities. Senator Hillary Clinton won the communities that voted Republican in the last several presidential elections.

Philosopher Argues Importance Of Morality In Political Campaigns

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Idealism and pragmatism are two threads that continually interweave through American presidential campaigns. In 2008, widely considered a "change" election, idealism has come to the fore in ways not often seen. In Moral Clarity -- A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, moral philosopher Susan Neiman argues that this idealism is "far more than abstraction or stump-speech rhetoric. It is a potent driving force with a long history of effecting change that has undiminished potential for grappling with the most controversial and pressing issues of our time, including the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq."

In a brief Q&A, Neiman talked about the subjects raised by her book:

Q. Do you think that the issue of morality, ethics and values is in jeopardy of being hijacked by politics?

A. When politics doesn't involve morality it becomes nothing but negotiation of competing interests: your clan (or tribe, or party, or country) can have this if mine can have that. Many clever people -- since ancient Athens, by the way -- have argued that moral language is just a way of rationalizing that sort of negotiation. If you don't believe that, and most Americans don't, then the task is not to disentangle morality from politics but to ask hard questions about what morality and values are."

Q. How can the philosophy of the Enlightenment help answer today's political and social problems?

A. We've been stuck between various forms of postmodern thinking, which may take up exciting questions but are often simply what Neitzsche called 'muddying the waters in order to make them seem deep.' And while it may sound vaguely liberating, postmodernism has no political leg to stand on. People have largely turned to it because academic philosophy has remained so remote from the rest of the world. With those alternatives, it's no surprise that many people turn to populist and even fundamentalist messages because they seem at least to take ordinary concerns about values seriously."

High School Teacher Takes To The Road To Study 200 Lincoln Statues Across U.S.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

In the spirit of William Least Heat Moon's iconic Blue Highways, W. Springfield (VA) High School history teacher James A. Percoco took to the roads for four summers to learn the backstories of some 200 statues erected over the years to Abraham Lincoln. In Summers With Lincoln -- Looking for the Man in the Monuments, he focuses his efforts largely on seven notable statues, beginning and ending his search in Washington.

Thomas Ball's Emancipation Group was erected east of the Capitol in 1876 with private funds from African Americans and dedicated to abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Percoco brought along his students, and together they explored "the impact of this Freedman's Monument showing Lincoln and a kneeling freed bondsperson. What does the statue say about race and freedom to today's Americans? What did Ball -- and his sponsors -- want it to say?"

Other statues included in Percoco's survey are Augustus Saint-Gaudens's 1887 Standing Lincoln in Chicago, Paul Manship's 1932 Lincoln the Hoosier Youth in Fort Wayne, IN; and Borglum's Seated Lincoln in Newark, N.J. The author chronicles the history of each monument, "spotlighting its artistic, social, political and cultural origins." It's little wonder that his publisher describes this innovative scholar as an award-winning history teacher.

Author: Putin Achieved Kingpin Role Through Intrigue, Corruption, Patronage, & Nepotism

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

Those who expected Russia to languish on history's slag heap after the fall of the Soviet Union were stunned to watch Vladimir Putin quarterback the payoff of the nation's international debt and accumulation of the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves, largely by becoming, in short order, the world's largest petroleum exporter.

So in spite of widespread criticism he has endured in recent years, Marshall Goldman writes in Petrostate -- Putin, Power, and the New Russia, Putin's a central player in world geopolitics and will continue to be so. His account cites the Russian leader's "determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era." Today, Putin, "his cohorts, and oil have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow.....(all accomplished through)....discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism and power."

Marshall Goldman is Professor of Economics Emeritus at Wellesley College and Senior Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard.

Author Focuses On RFK's '68 Primary Campaign But Skirts His '66 Whistle-Stop Tour

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

"After John Kennedy's assassination," writes Thurston Clarke in The Last Campaign -- Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America, "Robert -- formerly his brother's no-holds-barred political warrior -- was left stunned and grieving. He was haunted by his brother's murder and by the nation's failure to address its most pressing challenges -- race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam."

Actually, after JFK's death, Bobby had no marked feelings about race or poverty. John F. Kennedy had delivered a speech in the summer of 1963, supporting a civil rights bill, but neither he nor his attorney general connected with the issues then on an emotional level. It was during a 1966 whistle-stop tour of America, during which Bobby hoped to build up some political IOU's for a possible presidential campaign two years later, that one began to see the scales fall from his eyes, as he saw poverty and race relations up close.

Unfortunately, it's beyond the scope of Clarke's book to chronicle the 1966 tour, which was lavishly covered by Life and Look, the leading photo/news magazines of the day. But that epiphany was every bit as fascinating as the 82-day campaign he describes here.

Clarke has written a misty-eyed, "What if?" account of that thrilling campaign. His prologue quotes leading politicians of the day, arguing how different the world would be today had RFK lived. Many of them are contemporaneous statements, made in the grief-stricken moments following his assassination at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan, so allowances must be made.

Four and a half decades of life beyond RFK's death has left us older and wiser, and most of us realize that many of our idols have clay feet and that unforeseen circumstances arise during a presidency which change the best of intentions campaigned on. Which is not to say that we all aren't due for a healthy infusion of hope. Voters' reaction to the candidacy of Barack Obama is proof positive of that.

In any event, it's strongly evocative to relive those heady days, from LBJ's March 31, 1968 decision not to seek a full term to the horrific end of RFK's life in Los Angeles on June 4. All the old media hands, some now living, some dead, parade by.